Principal Site Reliability Engineer- CTJ- Secret

Microsoft•Redmond, WA

About The Position

Microsoft Substrate is the foundational cloud platform powering services including Exchange Online and M365 Copilot. It provides shared infrastructure, identity, messaging, storage, and service-to-service capabilities across Microsoft 365 and related cloud offerings. Substrate operates globally and is designed for high availability, reliability, and security for demanding workloads. The Principal Site Reliability Engineer sets technical and operational direction for reliability across Substrate workloads, including in regulated, sovereign, or compliance-sensitive environments. The role has broad influence over architecture, reliability strategy, and engineering practices across teams and organizations. It leads complex, multi-year initiatives, shapes how reliability is designed into systems, and models technical excellence, leadership, and Microsoft values. This position requires an active U.S. Government Secret Security Clearance, verification of U.S. citizenship, and successful completion of Microsoft and applicable customer or government security screenings. The role is Site Reliability Engineering IC5. The typical U.S. base pay range is USD $142,800–$274,800 per year; the range for the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City metropolitan area is USD $188,000–$304,200 per year. Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation.

Requirements

Doctorate in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field and at least 2 years of technical experience in software engineering, network engineering, or systems administration; or a master's degree in one of these fields and at least 3 years of such experience; or a bachelor's degree in one of these fields and at least 5 years of such experience; or equivalent experience.
Must have an active U.S. Government Secret Security Clearance and successfully verify the clearance.
Must meet Microsoft, customer, and/or government security screening requirements, including a Microsoft Cloud Background Check upon hire or transfer and every two years thereafter.
Must verify U.S. citizenship due to citizenship-based legal restrictions.
Failure to obtain or maintain the required clearance or customer screening requirements may result in employment action, up to and including termination.

Nice To Haves

Doctorate in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field and at least 5 years of technical experience in software engineering, network engineering, or systems administration; or a master's degree in one of these fields and at least 8 years of such experience; or a bachelor's degree in one of these fields and at least 12 years of such experience; or equivalent experience.
At least 7 years of technical experience working with large-scale cloud or distributed systems.

Responsibilities

Define and drive reliability strategy, SLO frameworks, and operational best practices across Substrate workloads in highly regulated environments.
Participate as a senior on-call engineer in on-call rotations and lead incident response for Substrate services in regulated environments.
Provide hands-on leadership during complex or high-impact incidents, setting technical direction and response strategy.
Lead post-incident reviews that produce durable, systemic engineering improvements across teams.
Architect and deliver large-scale automation, observability, and self-healing solutions.
Drive architectural decisions and define software engineering standards that make reliability, security, and compliance intrinsic to Substrate services.
Influence service design and engineering decisions across organizational boundaries.
Mentor senior and principal engineers and shape the long-term technical direction of the SRE discipline.
Represent Substrate SRE perspectives with senior leadership and cross-functional partners.